Who Is The Fool

The developments of the past year in Iran, particularly, the ongoing Iranian uprising which quickly spread to over 150 cities in January 2018 and continues today was a turning point. The structure of protestors, their slogans, and their radicalism especially when they chanted: “reformist, hardliners, the game is over” sent a strong signal that change is imminent for Iran.

Following uprisings in Iran, the question of regime change has turned into a serious debate inside the country and abroad, causing endless nightmares for ruling authorities. The regime of course, responded by stepping-up its crackdown on protesters at home, its export of terrorism abroad and exaggerations about its strength in the international political sphere to please their hapless and abscising forces.

Yet the Iranian regime and its authorities are so troubled with the thought of regime change that they haven’t had the time to consider the consequences of carrying out terrorist threats and attacks on European soil. They even forgot to keep a lid on confessions, lies and concealment in the nuclear talks with 5 + 1 countries when revealing that actions were at the order of the regime’s highest authority.

As Mark Twain said, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” There is a similar proverb in Farsi that says, “When the fool speaks his mouth, everyone scatters away from him.”

ali akbar salehi.
Ali Akbar Salehi

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Agency of the mullahs’ regime, is that fool when he said in an unprecedented confession on state-run Channel 4 television on January 22, 2019, that the mullahs lied in nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 countries about Arak’s nuclear site and in fact concealed a part of the banned equipment.

Adding details in his interview, he says, “In those tubes we had, those tubes which fuel goes through them, we had bought similar tubes previously, but I could not declare them at the time, only one person in Iran knew about it. Only the highest authority of the regime (Khamenei) was aware and no one else … His Holiness (Khamenei) had said that you should be careful about these people, they are not trustworthy. They do not keep their promises. Well, we had to work cleverly and intelligently, in addition to not destroying the bridges behind us, we also had to build a bridge that would enable us to go faster if we were to go back. It was a tube of two or three centimeters in diameter and three or four meters long… We had bought similar tubes, the same quantity, we were told to fill them with cement, so we poured cement in those tubes… but we did not tell them that we have other tubes because if we did, they would have said, sir, pour cement in those as well… We are going to use the same tubes now. Now we have those tubes.”

Salehi’s remarks clearly show that the regime’s intention in nuclear negotiations, especially with the P5+1, were based on falsification and concealment, and had no purpose other than gaining more opportunities to obtain nuclear bomb. Hiding unauthorized equipment in Arak site is one of the latest in the series of 30 years of deception and clamor by the mullahs’ regime in nuclear projects under the control of the regime’s leaders, especially Khamenei and Rouhani. An issue that the Iranian Resistance has consistently exposed since 1991 and has warned against its threats.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President elect of the Iranian Resistance, immediately warned after the agreement on July 14, 2015 and said, “This agreement does not close the mullahs’ path to deception and access to the nuclear bomb.” Prior to that, on November 24, 2013, after a temporary nuclear agreement with P5+1 countries she said, “the regime’s compliance with international obligations depends precisely on the degree of decisiveness and firmness of the world community vis-à-vis the regime’s evil intentions and its intrinsic deceptiveness.”

Mrs. Rajavi emphasized that, “any leniency, hesitancy and concessions by the international community will prompt Khamenei to once again move toward manufacturing through deception and cheating. The clerical regime has never volunteered to report its nuclear activities to the IAEA according to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); the Iranian Resistance has been the first party that revealed the regime’s clandestine facilities and its nuclear deception.”

Now the question is; was such explicit acknowledgment by the head of the regime’s nuclear agency, emphasizing that the regime will continue its atomic development, carried out far from the eyes of the International Atomic Energy Agency and 5 + 1 countries? Isn’t this live proof that once again, the Iranian regime cannot be trusted?

The Iranian regime’s fingerprints are found everywhere, even in plots and in the growing terrorist threats in Europe. Assadollah Assadi, a diplomat from the Iranian Embassy in Vienna is sitting in a Belgian Prison for his involvement in planning a terrorist operation and for delivering the bomb against a major gathering of the Iranian Resistance in Paris’s Villepinte. It is for the very same crime that the European Union recently blacklisted two of the regime’s diplomat. In addition to this, the regime’s newly appointed ambassador in Tirana, who has been the head of the regime’s Intelligence service in Europe, along with his first secretary, have been expelled from Albania in an attempt to bomb a gathering of the Iranian opposition, members of the PMOI based in Albania.

Iranians have a decisive answer to all of this. They support regime change and demand to live in freedom and democracy. They urge European heads of state to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) as terrorist entities.

On Friday, 8 February, Iranians throughout Europe will gather in Paris and hold a major demonstration, simultaneous to the 40th anniversary of the anti-monarchic revolution in Iran, which Khomeini stole to establish a dictatorship. Their call is to end the regime’s dictatorship and envisage a democracy established by the great will of the people who have paid a heavy price for freedom to this day with 120,000 fallen for freedom, including 30,000 political prisoners massacred in the summer of 1988.

Certainly, the demonstrators urge uncensored voices to join in on their call and support their aspirations for democracy and freedom.

Elham Zanjani is a member of the Women’s Committee of the NCRI, the Iranian opposition to the theocratic mullahs’ government.